Performance

The Huawei Mate 10 Lite is powered by the Kirin 659 chipset developed in-house by Huawei's HiSilicon subsidiary. It's a minor step over the Kirin 658, obviously. It has an octa-core CPU with eight A53 cores. Four of those take the heavy lifting and work at 2.36GHz, while the other four take care of less power-intensive tasks while ticking at 1.7GHz.

The GPU in charge of graphics is a dual-core Mali-T830, and Huawei also throws in 4 gigs of RAM.

The 659 chip has 10MHz higher clock for the faster CPU quarter and newer Bluetooth 4.2 support when compared to the 658 model. It's dropped the 5GHz Wi-Fi connectivity though.

The chip is built on a 16nm fabrication process, which isn't the most power-efficient process used for mid-range chipsets right now, but not that far behind the widespread 14nm either. So we expect the Kirin 659 to keep the phone rather cool at full throttle.

We kick off our benchmark routine with some processor torture as usual. A single A53 core can't get you very far on Geekbench, but at least its result offers consistent midrange performance results.

GeekBench 4.1 (single-core)

Higher is better

Honor 91876

Oppo R111596

Huawei Mate 10 Lite913

Sony Xperia XA1 Plus901

Xiaomi Mi A1877

HTC U11 Life873

Motorola Moto X4866

Huawei P10 lite834

vivo V7+767

LG Q6584

The consistent score continues with the high-performance quartet on the multi-core Geekbench test - the Mate 10 Lite is on par with the mid-range competition. The Snapdragon 660-powered R11 have an edge thanks to the Cortex-A72 pair.

GeekBench 4.1 (multi-core)

Higher is better

Honor 96457

Oppo R115777

Xiaomi Mi A14292

HTC U11 Life4140

Motorola Moto X44136

vivo V7+3912

Sony Xperia XA1 Plus3783

Huawei Mate 10 Lite3603

Huawei P10 lite3344

LG Q62011

The Mali-T830MP2 isn't a powerful GPU, but the series has proven over the past few months to offer balanced graphic performance for the class - nothing over the top, but enough. And our graphic tests confirm that. All competing Adreno GPUs by Qualcomm are obviously better, while the Mate 10 Lite's Mali offers the bare minimum for the class.

GFX 3.1 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

Honor 933

Oppo R1115

vivo V7+13

Motorola Moto X411

HTC U11 Life9.6

Sony Xperia XA1 Plus6.7

Xiaomi Mi A16.3

Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (S625)6.2

Huawei P10 lite5

Huawei Mate 10 Lite4.6

LG Q63.5

GFX 3.1 Car scene (onscreen)

Higher is better

Honor 914

Oppo R118.6

vivo V7+6.6

Motorola Moto X45.8

HTC U11 Life5.3

Sony Xperia XA1 Plus4

Xiaomi Mi A13.5

Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (S625)3.4

Huawei P10 lite3

Huawei Mate 10 Lite2.7

LG Q61.9

Basemark X

Higher is better

Honor 929398

Oppo R1120350

Motorola Moto X414479

HTC U11 Life14286

Xiaomi Mi A110472

Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (S625)10446

vivo V7+9955

Sony Xperia XA1 Plus9543

Huawei Mate 10 Lite8721

Huawei P10 lite7588

LG Q66179

Basemark ES 3.1 / Metal

Higher is better

Honor 9699

Oppo R11345

Sony Xperia XA1 Plus191

Motorola Moto X4189

HTC U11 Life183

Huawei Mate 10 Lite146

Huawei P10 lite145

Xiaomi Mi A1136

vivo V7+131

LG Q682

Our performance checkup continues with the compound tests - those gauge GPU, CPU, RAM, Web and OS performance. Here the Mate 10 Lite bested most of its competitors with similar chipsets posting some great all-round scores. The Oppo R11 and Honor 9 are obviously better with their premium chips and slashed prices, though.

AnTuTu 6

Higher is better

Honor 9143583

Oppo R11118677

HTC U11 Life72854

Motorola Moto X471224

Huawei Mate 10 Lite63068

Xiaomi Mi A161762

Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (S625)61616

Huawei P10 lite60895

vivo V7+57791

Sony Xperia XA1 Plus55657

LG Q637276

Basemark OS 2.0

Higher is better

Honor 93072

Oppo R112386

Motorola Moto X41532

Huawei Mate 10 Lite1408

HTC U11 Life1342

vivo V7+1290

Huawei P10 lite1284

Xiaomi Mi A11262

Sony Xperia XA1 Plus1198

Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (S625)1050

LG Q6275

Huawei Mate 10 Lite is well equipped for the class and won't fail you at any task. It handles organizing tasks hassle-free, and we had no issues playing popular games, though loading takes a while and hiccups do happen. The phone runs cool even at full throttle, so don't expect any heat issues no matter how you use it. It isn't a chart topper, sure, not even next to fellow mid-ranges, but the Mate 10 Lite offers balanced performance, and that's enough.